


Yours

by madnessfk



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: AU, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 09:20:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,727
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2576273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madnessfk/pseuds/madnessfk
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU for "The God Complex": what could have been behind the Master`s door</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yours

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Твой (самый жуткий страх)](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/81737) by madnessfk. 



> Yet another attempt to translate some of my writings. I feel like it got a little better. I put a link to original russian version just in case.

The Master felt something fuzzy and itchy under his cheek, something like cheap carpet. If you think of it, that probably was a cheap carpet, the kind of carpet that left scored marks on a skin. The Master hadn`t opened eyes yet, but he could feel pale light shining in his face. He tried to find what might have been his latest memory, but they all were sticky and clammy, and were clinging to each other like an overcooked pasta, and wouldn`t stay in the right order. What was he doing? Where was he? Had he a beard? (The Master, eyes still closed, touched his chin — no, no beard. But was it no beard yet or already no beard?) 

He tasted gore blood on his lips. Later, when the Master managed to get up, he discovered the same blood on his hands and his clothes and even on his face. He wasn`t sure thought if the blood was his own. 

For a moment, it occurred him he might be dead. That would explain a lot. The Master took it easy: he dyed way too often to be surprised. 

But soon he noticed, that his hearts were still beating, he was breathing, and his blood still ran through his veins —that wasn`t particularly dead and didn`t went along with his theory. 

This place, whenever it was, didn`t look anything like a place you may find yourself after death anyway.

It was empty, cold and abandoned: a long hall with shabby wallpapers that used to be yellow, with creaky stairway, with fainted colors, with long ago stopped clocks, with a cobweb left in the corner and a dust covering tables. It had a smell of houses where nobody lives, of books no one reads, of a toy child grew up from. It looked like no human was here for years, and yet, there were pale lights, and yet, there were no moss or mold or any other sign of destruction every old hollow place has.

There were brand new fingerprints on a dusty table, brand new and human. 

There was somebody else here. Somebody was sneaking, seeking, running, hiding — here, so very close. Or maybe not. Maybe Somebody wasn`t sneaking, but it was just a moment ago. Maybe, maybe if he wait long enough, Somebody will reappear. Therefore, the Master waited, but no one came. Nothing happened at all, only a lamp started to glow nervously for, but even that ended soon. Somebody must be on another floor already.

It made no sense to stay on the same place — the Master thought rationally (good news, since he had problems with rational thinking lately), even though he still had absolutely no idea where “the place” was. Then again, it means he could go wherever he likes without getting lost. Keeping it in mind, the Master went up the stairs to the next floor, where eternity of halls and hundreds and hundreds of doors were. Sometimes the Master spotted a name on a door, or a number, or, sometimes, there was nothing but the white colored wood. 

Air filled with a smell of rottenness. 

A body lied on a floor, lied for a long time by the look of it: it`s face didn`t even looked like a face anymore, more like a cheap Halloween mask, with worm eaten cheeks and green looking skin. The Master curled his lips. And here was Somebody. The Master expected him to be a little less…dead. 

Well, at least now he knew for sure it wasn`t some variation of an afterlife: there are no corpses in afterlife. That would be silly. 

The Master stepped over the body and continued walking through the hall, but it was all the same. It was the same by this side of the corner, and it was the same by the other side. Same wallpapers, same floors, same doors. Doors. Doors-doors-doors-doors. Doors. Names, numbers, nothings — doors. The Master never thought he would be that angry at some doors. 

“You asked for it”, — the Master warned a door with a number twenty-four on it before looking inside. There, right in the middle of a room, was an ice cream van. It said «Little Baby's Ice Cream» on it`s side. As the door opened, cheerful melody started to play from it. The Master waited for a few seconds for something else to happened, but that was it.

Behind the door number twenty-two there was a giant slottery bulldog. Behind number twenty — a middle aged, already balding man in a gray suite. In a room number eighteen venomous snakes hanged from the ceiling, in number sixteen the dalek stood silently. By fourteenth door (behind which there was nothing but darkness) the Master got the idea, by thirteenth (white horse with muddy eyes) he understood the logic, by twelfth (wasps, a lot of them) he was absolutely convinced that behind each and every door there was someone`s fear. An awfully huge collection of fears. The Master could just imagine what a fun place it used to be before everything fell apart. 

The Master pulled the door`s handle of a room number eleven and stopped in surprise. There was no spiders or snakes, or abusive parents, or wild animals, or clowns, or darkness, or monsters from under the bed. Nothing like that, lust…just a crack. 

Just a crack with a light bursting through. Just a crack.

Except in a place like this, where in every room there was somebody’s nightmare, it can`t be just any crack. It must be a very special crack. **The Crack.**

The Master looked around — just in case, he wasn`t really sure why — but a corridor was still empty, so he took a slow step inside the room. Immediately, the door shut down right behind his back, but that was to be expected. The Master moved closer to **The Crack**. It seemed quite possible for it to break apart, releasing something like Zagreus from it`s deeps, but when that never happened, the Master almost felt disappointment. 

The Master was going to leave for more exiting corridor exploding, but **The Crack** has spoken. It had a lovely female voice with a slight Lancashire accent. To be fair, it probably was not **The Crack** itself that was talking, but a person from the other side of it. That seemed to be more logical, unless, of course, Zagreus was secretly from Lancashire. 

For a moment, the Master hesitated. His instincts begged him to stay away from **The Crack** , but Lancashire female kept talking, and the Master could barely hear a word from where he was standing. 

“Listen!” — cried Lancashire. The Master shrugged and moved closer to the wall. If something from the other side of **The Creepy Crack** wanted his attention so hard, it would be at least impolite not to pay attention. He is not in a hurry. Go on, Ms. Crack, keep talking. 

“Help him. Help him change the future. Do it. Do something!”

Oh.

It seemed like Lancashire was sobbing. The Master knew the sound of a tear cracking voice way too well not to recognize. He couldn`t decide what to ask first, “Help who?” or “Help how?” or “Why do I even bother helping at all?”. He stopped on the last one, but Lancashire ignored him. Instead, she said:

“You've been asking a question. And it's time someone told you you've been getting it wrong. His name…”

“You`re not really talking to me, are you?” — whispered the Master, surprised it took him so long to realize such an obvious thing. Lancashire is not here, and so is **The Crack** , and spiders, and snakes, and abusive parents, and darkness. It`s all just a reflection, an echo of something happening somewhere far-far away. 

“His name is the Doctor”.

Really very far-far away.

The Master pulled away from the wall as if it burned him. Lancashire was crying. She begged for help. She was one of the Doctor`s girls. It wasn`t so hard to put it all together, really. Once again, Doctor bit more than he could chew and had to face consequences. He might even be dying out there. Well, it`s okay, it is good for him to die once, as an exception: it doesn`t have to be the Master who dyes all the time, does it? Anyway, Doctor wasn`t going to die.

“He`s not going to die”, — told the Master to Lancashire out loud, slightly annoyed with her stupidity. — “He will regenerate”. 

That is, of course, unless the Doctor was actually dying. For real. Like, **Dying.**

“And if you love him, and you should”, — the Master let out extremely irritated sound, — “help him. Help him”.

The Master took a moment, waiting for Lancashire to say something else so he could tell her everything he thought of her, the Doctor, the Doctor`s **Dying** and The Crack, but Lancashire said no more. Frustrated, the Master left the room, banging the door as loudly as he could. He was going to go the first way he`d see and never come back to this stupid door ever again.

How could that fucker even think of Dying from something, that was not the Master? Unbelievable. The Master just left, and the Doctor already found himself new enemies to play with. To be **Killed** by.

Except the Doctor wasn`t going to **Die.**

Wasn`t he?

The Master froze. He looked at the door, behind which **The Crack** was hidden. There was no “11” anymore. Instead, there was a word.

“YOURS”.

“Mine? What, mine fear?” — asked the Master. — “Don`t you fuck with me, door. If I was scared of his death, I wouldn`t try to kill him, would I? That`s silly”. 

“YOURS” — the door insisted. 

On the other hand, if the door somehow was right and the Doctor really was dying ( **Dying** ) without his, the Master`s, assistance, that would be unforgivable. And not because of what Lancashire sobbed into **The Crack** , but something had to be done. 

Maybe the Master will have to burn regeneration or two to get out of here, but that worth it: he wasn`t going let any silly door to think everything between him and the Doctor was that simple.


End file.
